5.  The applicant was born in 1954 and lives in Cluj-Napoca.
6.  The applicant and several other persons were charged in criminal proceedings concerning five international drug-trafficking networks. The proceedings were widely reported in the media, as they concerned one of the biggest drug-trafficking cases investigated by the Romanian authorities at the time.
7.  On the night of 9 to 10 April 2003, a lorry entering Romania from Turkey had its papers checked by customs officers at the Negru Vodă checkpoint. As the customs officers had identified certain irregularities in connection with the transportation documents, they decided to carry out a search of the lorry in the presence of a prosecutor.
8.  The prosecutor unsealed the lorry and inspected its contents in the presence of the customs authorities. A large quantity of heroin (174 kilograms) was found hidden in its load. A report was immediately drawn up. Photographs of the packets of heroin were taken and attached to the report.
9.  The lorry driver, S.I.V, was questioned by the prosecutor. He signed the search report without raising any objections to its findings. He stated that the lorry belonged to the applicant’s company and that the applicant had been in Turkey when the loading of the lorry took place. This led to the commencement of the criminal investigation against the applicant.
10.  The packets of heroin, the load, and the lorry itself were retained in the interest of the investigation. A new search of the lorry was carried out on the same day in Constanța. Two assistant witnesses signed the report drafted on that occasion.
11.  On 10 April 2003, on the basis of the outcome of the inspection of the lorry, the prosecutor ordered a search at the applicant’s company. In the presence of two assistant witnesses, the investigators found relevant documents, which were confiscated for the purpose of investigation. On the same date a search was carried out at a former office of the applicant’s company, where documents were found and confiscated. Search reports were drawn up in both occasions.
12.  The applicant was arrested on 10 April 2003 in Bucharest, immediately after he arrived from Turkey. On the night of 10 to 11 April he was taken to Constanța, to the Local Centre for the Fight against Organised Crime and Drug Trafficking.
13.  On 15 July, 4 and 28 September 2003 the Bucharest County Court extended the applicant’s pre-trial detention by interlocutory judgments concerning all the accused persons who had been arrested in the criminal investigation. The reasons adduced to justify this measure were: the existence of reasonable suspicion that the accused had committed the offences alleged; the gravity and the nature of the offences alleged; and the necessity for further procedural acts (including extension of the investigations to involve other individuals, checking of the criminal record of the accused, obtaining lists of telephone calls between those accused, and site investigations.)
14.  On 23 October 2003, at the first hearing on the merits, the Bucharest County Court reviewed the lawfulness of the accused’s pre-trial detention. It held that their detention was justified, as there was a reasonable suspicion that they had committed the offences alleged, and that their release could obstruct the course of justice. It also held that the nature of the offences, the large number of accused, and the fact that they were organised in networks were all evidence of a danger to public order.
15.  The accused’s detention was repeatedly extended. The first-instance court decided each time that the initial reasons that justified their detention persisted. The applicant lodged appeals against the interlocutory judgments issued; all the appeals were dismissed by final decisions of the Bucharest Court of Appeal, without additional reasons being given.
16.  Between 12 February 2004 and 4 October 2005, when a judgment on the merits was delivered, all interlocutory judgments extending the applicant’s pre-trial detention were delivered by the same judge, Judge M.
17.  On 15 June 2005, taking into account the progress of the judicial investigation and the already lengthy duration of the pre-trial detention, Judge M. decided to replace pre-trial detention with an obligation not to leave the country, in respect of all the accused. She held that despite the existence of strong indications that the accused had committed the offences, keeping the accused in detention was no longer necessary for the good administration of justice. She also held that public order would not be affected if the accused were released from pre-trial detention. The prosecutor lodged an appeal. Over the following days, according to the applicant, the prosecutors directed a nationwide media campaign through newspapers and television programms, and the day before the delivery of the appeal decision the prosecutor attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice issued a press release in which it stated that the release decision had been taken following a bribe of one million dollars paid by an organised crime network from Turkey.
18.  On 17 June 2005 the Bucharest Court of Appeal allowed the prosecutor’s appeal, judging that the first-instance court had erred in finding that the reasons which had so far justified the pre-trial detention had changed. It considered that the requirement of a reasonable length of proceedings needed to be considered in the light of the complexity of the case, which involved many accused, and that it was for the first-instance court to speed up the proceedings.
19.  On 25 September 2003 the prosecutor issued an indictment in respect of twenty-six accused persons, including the applicant, and the file was registered with the Bucharest County Court the next day. The indictment also indicated that ten of the accused had absconded from investigations.
20.  The judicial investigation before the first-instance court lasted from 26 September 2003 until 4 October 2005, when the first-instance judgment was delivered.
21.  On 6 September 2004 the County Court decided to disjoin the case in respect of the co-accused who had absconded, given that the proceedings concerning them were more complex and this was likely to affect the length of the trial.
22.  The applicant was assisted by a lawyer of his choice throughout the proceedings.
23.  The County Court took statements from the accused and witnesses from 14 October 2004 onwards.
24.  In his statements before the prosecutor and the first-instance court, I.P., one of the co-accused, gave a chronological account of events, starting with the moment of meeting the supplier of the drugs from Turkey, the connection with the applicant, the organisation of the criminal activity, the method used to bring the drugs into the country, an indication of who was involved, and the amounts of money obtained by each participant from the operation. I.P. expressly mentioned that the applicant played a prominent part in the operation of the criminal network, as he provided the means of transportation and the documents necessary to disguise the criminal activity in a legal trade.
25.  According to I.P., the applicant went to Turkey to give him the keys of the lorry and to see for himself that there were no problems with the loading of the heroin, as the lorry drivers were not aware of the presence of the drugs hidden in the load.
26.  I.P.’s statements revealed aspects of fact confirmed by four witnesses who had driven the applicant’s lorry, thus the merchandise had been transported from Turkey to Romania on four occasions. All four drivers confirmed that the applicant had accompanied them to Turkey, being present on each occasion when the merchandise was loaded into the lorry. Once the merchandise had been loaded the applicant went back to Romania by bus, not before asking them to call him each time they crossed a border, to inform him whether there were any problems.
27.  On 29 September 2005 the judicial investigation was closed and the lawyers of the accused or the accused themselves submitted their arguments on the merits of the case.
28.  By a first-instance judgment of 4 October 2005 a single-judge panel of the Bucharest County Court, namely Judge M., found the applicant guilty and sentenced him to sixteen years’ imprisonment. He was found guilty of taking part in international drug trafficking by facilitating the transport of drugs from Turkey to Romania, in a lorry belonging to his company. His conviction was based on statements by I.P., who was considered to have been the link between the distributors in Turkey and the buyers in Romania, as corroborated by the statements of some of the other accused and several witnesses. The County Court found the arguments raised by the applicant in his defence inconsistent and illogical. It also concluded that the requests to adduce technical evidence concerning the state of the lorry and its itinerary in Turkey were not pertinent to the case, since the evidence already adduced established the relationship between the applicant and I.P. and the illicit nature of their cooperation.
29.  The applicant lodged an appeal against the judgment of the first‑instance court, complaining, inter alia, of lack of impartiality on the part of Judge M., excessive length of pre-trial detention, and wrong assessment of evidence.
30.  During the appeal proceedings on 2 December 2005 the accused, including the applicant, lodged a challenge against the Bucharest Court of Appeal. Their request was reviewed by the High Court of Cassation and Justice. The accused contested the impartiality of all the judges of the court of appeal, as they had regularly reviewed the decisions of the first-instance court to extend their pre-trial detention, which ultimately lasted two years and four months. At the hearing the High Court of Cassation and Justice decided to extend the pre-trial detention of the accused, and postponed a ruling on the challenge to 5 December 2005. The challenge was dismissed as unfounded on this later date.
31.  The applicant’s appeal against the first-instance judgment was dismissed by a decision of the Bucharest Court of Appeal on 7 June 2006.
32.  The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law, claiming, inter alia, that the lower courts had unlawfully relied in their decisions on the statements of I.P., which were not corroborated by the statements of five of the other accused, and which I.P. had given with a view to securing a milder sentence for himself; that the search of the lorry had been unlawful; and that he had been denied the opportunity to adduce evidence that could have proved his innocence (including technical information on the itinerary of the lorry in Turkey). The applicant also complained that the domestic courts had been influenced by the media when delivering their judgments on the merits, and that they had not been impartial, given that they had prejudged his case, in delivering their decisions confirming the lawfulness of his pre‑trial detention.
33.  By a final decision of the High Court of Cassation and Justice of 14 June 2007, the applicant’s appeal on points of law was allowed in part in respect of the gravity of the sentence, and his sentence was reduced to eight years’ imprisonment. The High Court of Cassation examined the first-instance court’s findings and noted that that court had carried out a thorough and extensive examination of the evidence put before it and that the reasoning given was in all respects convincing.